The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum » Ontario Station That Was Country For "Decades" Suddenly Goes Rock

RadioActive · January 9, 2025 6:39 pm

After years as a fulltime country radio station, CJQM-FM in Sault Ste. Marie is still out in the country - but is no longer playing it. The Rogers outlet suddenly switched to rock this week, but the company hasn't completely abandoned loyal twang fans. The old format has been moved to CKAT-AM 600 instead.

No word on why they made the move.

Local country station is ready to rock

splunge · January 9, 2025 6:48 pm

CJQM was the first station i worked at way back in the 80s. hugely popular for radio "way out in the country".... which is a rather toronna-centric opinion of a city with a population of 77,000!

Scarboroughbluffsradiof99 · January 9, 2025 7:13 pm

What should've happened is rogers should've put the country format on an hd subchannel.

RadioAaron · January 9, 2025 7:39 pm

600am (actually from north bay) has already been country (with some sports) for some time.

RadioAaron · January 9, 2025 7:40 pm

Scarboroughbluffsradiof99 wrote:
What should've happened is rogers should've put the country format on an hd subchannel.

There aren’t enough HD radios out there, and Numeris refuses to rate them, so there is no business model for that to work.

Last edited by RadioAaron (January 9, 2025 7:41 pm)

paterson1 · January 9, 2025 7:45 pm

Now here is a town that has real competition. US stations blasting over just a few miles away. The radio up there had US spots on Canadian channels, and Canadian spots on the US stations. I was in the Sault many years ago and the radio overall was pretty weak on both sides of the border. Met the PD of one of the US stations. He was PD, morning announcer, salesman and wrote copy. All he wanted to do was talk about CBC radio and how good they were.

Chrisphen · January 9, 2025 7:50 pm

paterson1 wrote:
Now here is a town that has real competition. US stations blasting over just a few miles away. The radio up there had US spots on Canadian channels, and Canadian spots on the US stations. I was in the Sault many years ago and the radio overall was pretty weak on both sides of the border. Met the PD of one of the US stations. He was PD, morning announcer, salesman and wrote copy. All he wanted to do was talk about CBC radio and how good they were.

He likely also had to unblock the toilets on a regular basis.
Edit - toilet.

Last edited by Chrisphen (January 9, 2025 8:26 pm)

Scarboroughbluffsradiof99 · January 9, 2025 9:08 pm

RadioAaron wrote:
Scarboroughbluffsradiof99 wrote:
What should've happened is rogers should've put the country format on an hd subchannel.
There aren’t enough HD radios out there, and Numeris refuses to rate them, so there is no business model for that to work.

That's why the CRTC, Numeris and broadcasters nead to premote it before it goes the way of DAB.

Easily Amused · January 10, 2025 9:16 am

Switching to rock no doubt will address the lack of Trooper, Gino Vanelli, and other Can Con clunkers on the airwaves. 😁

RadioAaron · January 10, 2025 9:22 am

Scarboroughbluffsradiof99 wrote:
RadioAaron wrote:
Scarboroughbluffsradiof99 wrote:
What should've happened is rogers should've put the country format on an hd subchannel.
There aren’t enough HD radios out there, and Numeris refuses to rate them, so there is no business model for that to work.
That's why the CRTC, Numeris and broadcasters nead to premote it before it goes the way of DAB.

It's far too late. Also, most markets already have too many stations for all of them to be profitable.

mace · January 11, 2025 8:36 am

Is it possible 104.3 dropped Country for Rock because most of that formats listeners preferred across the border 105.5 WMKD which has a monster 100,000 watt signal?

RadioAaron · January 11, 2025 10:44 am

mace wrote:
Is it possible 104.3 dropped Country for Rock because most of that formats listeners preferred across the border 105.5 WMKD which has a monster 100,000 watt signal?

Quite possibly. It's an un-rated market so it would all be anecdotal. It's a small enough market that it could even come down to the personal taste of a major local advertiser.

paterson1 · January 11, 2025 12:43 pm

CJQM is also 100,000 watts. Once you get outside of St. Sault Marie on both sides of the border there really isn't that much going on. So I am not sure the big signal for either is a huge factor. I think radio stations in the Sault on both sides of the border have struggled for years.

paterson1 · January 11, 2025 3:12 pm

This is interesting. CJQM does have direct competition with WSUE Rock 101 in Sault Michigan which also is 100,000. WSUE has had no rock radio competition since 2010 after another Northern Michigan rock station changed format. So they are well anchored in the market.

The Fox (CJQM) and Rock 101 both use The Sault's Rock Station as their slogan, with obviously The Fox copying Rock 101. Both stations are quite heavy and are definately playing rock. WSUE is very well established in Sault Ontario since they are presenting Our Lady Piece in Sault Ontario and are the radio broadcaster for the popular Soo Greyhounds. The Fox has a contest to see AC/DC in Nashville.

Rock 101's website is much better and slicker than what Rogers has for the Ontario station. Both sound like they have a live announcer Saturday afternoon.

Did hear one commercial break on WSUE, four spots (three of which were 60 seconds) and one was for the Algoma School Board. The other three were US ads. Ad production quality was pretty bad, the sound was poor except for the 30 sec Algoma School spot.

Also heard one spot set on the Fox with four ads. Much better production and I think all four were Canadian ads, but one I wasn't quite sure. All ads were 30 seconds except one was 15 sec.

On line Fox is louder and much better quality sound than Rock 101. I have only heard a few image breaks on both stations but first impression would give the better production to Fox.

https://www.rock101.net/
https://www.1043thefox.com/

Saul · January 11, 2025 3:58 pm

paterson1 wrote:
CJQM is also 100,000 watts. Once you get outside of St. Sault Marie on both sides of the border there really isn't that much going on. So I am not sure the big signal for either is a huge factor. I think radio stations in the Sault on both sides of the border have struggled for years.

It's an interesting market, being a border town and further north than more populated Ontario locales. Stations from the Soo are frequent visitors via tropo scatter ... they aren't quite groundwave to my Kawathas site, as they're a little over 300 miles. But they're close enough that they fade in and out a lot, so I hear enough of them. 93.9 on the US side in nearby Newberry is Oldies 93, and has a nice selection. It comes in a lot, rotating generally with Windsor, Ottawa and the Erie PA area station, for the most part. Of course, they're not bound by Cancon, FWIW. the 104.3 is also frequent. It rotates with Detroit, Utica NY and sometimes Kingston and Val D'or QC. Both channels are empty enough, aside from fade-ins, that I get lots of meteor scatter signals (abrupt signals lasting anywhere up to 10 seconds, sometimes longer, from 300-1000 miles). It seems that 104.3 has been country in the Soo for as long as some of the older barns there have been standing. Well, almost. The others are less frequent. 89.5 is CBC Radio 1, and it sometimes briefly overrides CIUT. 101.3 is rock. 98.3 is NPR, also rotates with Kingston CFLY. Less frequent for me are 88.1 (CBC French, and rarely heard here), 100.5 (Kiss, I think, but Peterborough and North Bay have stations that mostly block any hope of a regular appearance), 99.5 (top 40 and blocked a bit by a Muskoka station). There's also stations in nearby US towns like Pickford, as well as the aforementioned Newberry. It'll be fun to hear something different on 104.3, and I'm not much of a new-country fan, but I'm not entirely sure what's to gain from the station's point of view. Maybe it just feels good to shuffle the deck every so often?

RadioAaron · January 11, 2025 4:14 pm

paterson1 wrote:
The Fox (CJQM) and Rock 101 both use The Sault's Rock Station as their slogan, with obviously The Fox copying Rock 101.

It's not copying; it's the standard tagline for all Rogers rock stations.